In episode 50 of Hooked on Creek, I chat with Jimmy Jennings about his love for Max Creek and live music.
Jimmy describes the impact Max Creek has had on his life, tells stories about seeing the band over the years, talks about his interest in photography and opens up about his passion for writing and performing music.
This episode features the following songs performed live by Max Creek:
- Outside of Home performed at Sterling Stage in Hannibal, New York, on July 3, 1999
- Darlin’ performed at Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, New York, on January 11, 2002
- Life During Wartime performed at the Harvest Festival at Cedar Pines Campground in Redfield, New York on September 27, 2008
- Said and Done performed at the Webster Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, on December 31, 2000
- Wooly Bully performed at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Islande, on October 23, 2002
- Heartbeat performed at the Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 31, 2007
Transcript of episode 50
You’re listening to Hooked on Creek, a podcast celebrating the music, history and fans of the legendary jam band Max Creek. I am your host, Korre Johnson, and you are listening to episode 50.
Thank you for joining me on this milestone episode of Hooked on Creek. Fifty episodes, can you believe it? Well, if you’ve been following my love of Max Creek through all 50 episodes of the podcast, thank you. While this has been a rewarding experience for me, I really hope this podcast has delivered something valuable to you and the community of fans that support Max Creek.
To that end, I am very excited to share a recent conversation I had with Jimmy Jennings. Jimmy is a passionate fan of Max Creek with a deep appreciation for live music. In this episode, Jimmy talks about his love of Max Creek, his experiences seeing the band perform over the years and the opportunities he has had to photograph the band. Jimmy also describes the special bond that connects fans and sets the Max Creek family apart. Jimmy’s passion for music is truly infectious. He is not only a fan of music, but also a creator of music, poetry and songs, so I think you are really going to enjoy our conversation.
A couple quick things before we get started. Be sure to keep listening after I wrap up my interview with Jimmy because I included a killer version of Heartbeat — one of Jimmy’s favorite songs — at the end of this episode for your listening pleasure. Also, Jimmy sent me a few really great pictures that you can check out on the Hooked on Creek website. And over on hookedoncreek.com is where you can also find a full transcript of my conversation with Jimmy, as well as links to stream or download all the music featured in this episode. Alright, now let’s get started.
Korre: Jimmy Jennings, welcome to Hooked on Creek.
Jimmy: Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s an absolute honor to be here.
Korre: Jimmy, I understand music is a big part of your life. You play and write music. You are a longtime fan of Max Creek, and you’re a photographer who’s taken pictures of Max Creek over many years. So to kick things off, introduce yourself by telling me where you are from and how long you’ve been listening to Max Creek.
Jimmy: Well, I’m from Syracuse, New York, and I’ve been listening to Max Creek since about 1994 or 1995, and I’ve been enjoying the pleasure of seeing them perform live since 1997.
Korre: How many shows do you think you’ve caught over the years?
Jimmy: 179.
Korre: 179. I was going to say, “If you had to guess,” but I think you have an answer.
Jimmy: Yeah, 179 that I actually went into and saw. There was a few that when I was younger and they played at a place in Syracuse called Styleen’s and another place called the Suds Factory — I wasn’t old enough to get in, so I stood out on the sidewalk and listened.
Korre: Cool. Well, Jimmy, one of the things that I’ve become aware of in the Max Creek scene is something called the Mark-side Crew. Can you tell me about that?
Jimmy: So ever since probably 2002 or 2003, maybe it was a little earlier, 2001, 2002, I gravitated towards Mark’s side. I don’t even know how it started or what it was or if it was a joke, but it’s become a real thing. There’s a lot of us. Every show that I go to as soon as I get there, I just bolt right for the left side of the stage, right in front of Mark. It’s almost always the same core people right up front. You get randoms here and there, but we just kind of all ended up there because we love Mark.
A lot of times, some of the venues the left side — like the Met, for example, the left side is great because there is plenty of dancing room. They just played there last night. It looked like an amazing show. I wish I could have been there. So yeah, it just started and I’m not really sure if it was a joke or it was something that was 100 percent serious, but now it really is. I will not find myself anywhere else unless I’m taking pictures or going to get a drink. I’m right there, Mark side, upfront.
Korre: And do you think Mark recognizes the loyal group of fans who pick out that spot in the floor?
Jimmy: Yeah, he definitely does. Absolutely. He knows that we’re all going to be right there. If I’m ever at a show and I stood over on the right side, I don’t know if it would throw everybody off. But yeah, he definitely knows and we appreciate it. It’s great. It’s absolutely amazing.
Korre: Jimmy, take me back to your first introduction to the music of Max Creek. How did you get exposed to this music? What’s your origin story?
Jimmy: A long time ago, guys our age we remember bootlegs and getting third, fourth, fifth-generation Grateful Dead tapes because they’ve been passed down from person to person. And you still had to get it. I had a decent little collection for a long time. I actually still have it. There was a guy that I went to middle school with named Jay Huner and he was the first person that ever introduced me to Creek by putting it on a filler on the second side of a Dead tape. It was a Fillmore East tape from ’69.
The filler was from Max Creek Halloween in Norwalk, Connecticut. I still remember it was Harmony, Just a Rose and Werewolves of London. That was kind of my introduction to Max Creek and it was only because my buddy wanted to show me a new band and put it on the filler of a Grateful Dead bootleg.
Korre: So how did you make the next step from hearing the music for the first time to getting exposed to more live recordings and ultimately getting to see them?
Jimmy: There’s a place in the Syracuse area, it’s actually in Hannibal or Sterling, New York. It’s Sterling Stage and a long time ago it was called Phil’s Farm and it became Sterling Stage soon thereafter. Max Creek’s been playing there for a long time, a lot longer than I’ve been seeing them. My friends and I, we were young and we heard about this place where there was live music and you go camping all weekend. Because festivals weren’t as prevalent as they’re today and you heard of something like that and you’re like, “Oh man, there’s going to be a bunch of bands there. We can camp out. We can just hang out and do our thing.”
So we went up there and this is ’96, ’97. I’m thinking ’97 Sterling Stage. I was in the campground hanging out with my buddies at our campsite, and I was just hearing this crazy guitar. I’m just like, “Wow.” I mean, we weren’t looking at anything but going there to hang out and maybe we’ll check out the bands, maybe we won’t. We’re just going to do our thing. And I heard it and I went up and I was just blown away. I asked somebody, “Who’s this?” They said, “It’s Max Creek.” And I’m like, “I know those guys. I remember those guys. I have a couple of songs that I know of those guys.”
A lot of bands that you’ve never heard of, sometimes you’ll catch a cover that you know and they do it extremely well. Werewolves of London, I knew that song. The Grateful Dead played it. That’s kind of what got me into it. And then once I saw it live, I was like, “Holy cow. I got to look into this a little bit.” Same thing that happened with you when you found them. And so I did. I dove in a little bit and then I noticed they were coming around Syracuse a little bit. I went down, like I said. I wasn’t old enough to get in the venue. I was just a teenager. I hung out outside for most of the show.
And later on when I knew who they were, I went and saw them in ’98 at the Opera House in Geneva. And somewhere around 2000 when I graduated from high school and I was no longer living in my parents’ house — I was out on my own — the girl that I was living with, we used to go see Max Creek all the time. So it started off real slow and then it was like the snowball effect. The more I was hanging out at the top of the mountain, the more snow I was collecting in order to roll down to where the party was.
Korre: How often did Max Creek get to your part of the state?
Jimmy: For a long time there, you had all these shows at Styleen’s. There was one night, 2001 or 2000, they played the Landmark Theatre — the legendary Landmark Theater in Syracuse, New York — and they co-headlined with Strangefolk and it was a hell of a night. Definitely one of the more amazing times I’ve had at the Landmark. That place is amazing. There is a theater here called the Westcott Theater that they play at least once a year. I think they’ve missed one year since 2010. They opened up for moe. a couple of times at the F Shed here in Syracuse, which is the farmer’s market.
They do a lot of Rochester stuff. Syracuse and Max Creek, we mesh real well. We love it and they’re amazing. But there’s something about Max Creek and Rochester. Water Street Music Hall, I’ve seen them there probably 20 times at this point and every single time they play there, they’re just drop bombs. It’s just amazing every time. I’ve never seen a bad show at Water Street Music Hall.
Plus they get out to Buffalo every now and again. So I’ve seen them in Utica a couple of times. I’ve seen them in Albany or the Troy area — Revolution Hall. They like to get out here because they know that there’s a decent amount of people in New York that are more than willing to come see them if they’re not six, seven hours away. Sometimes it’s difficult to get away for one or two nights when it’s all the way to, for example last night, the Met. I couldn’t make it. That’s a six-hour drive for me. I wanted to though. Oh man, I wanted to.
Korre: You talked about Sterling Stage and I’m wondering what other types of either venues or Max Creek events stand out in your mind after seeing them for this long?
Jimmy: I will say that Camp Creek is the most encompassing and full Max Creek experience that you can have because it’s multiple days. Sometimes they’ll do an acoustic set to start on Sunday or whatever the plan is. So Camp Creek is the best. However, some of the anniversary shows over the years — they were at Eastover Resort in Lenox, Massachusetts, for a while. That place was amazing. You got to love the Sterling shows. They did Wormtown almost every year. I didn’t go to the first one, but I went to the second, third, fourth, fifth. So the annual festivals that they do every year — they used to do Gathering of the Vibes every year. Some of that was great.
However, New Year’s. There is something about New Year’s that just hits different. I’ve only been seeing them on New Year’s since after Big Cyprus, obviously I was at Big Cyprus. Every year after that for 13, 14 years I was at Max Creek. I missed a year or two since. But some of the venues that they played were just really cool for New Year’s. There was one year that it was in Pittsfield, a couple of years ago. There was a play set on the back of the stage for whatever play was performing at that particular venue at that time, and it was still there. And that was kind of cool.
We had a masquerade ball one year. We did a Back to the Future New Year. The masquerade ball was great. It was like Union Station in Hartford or something. It was a cool place and the show was obviously top notch.
But of all the places that I’ve seen Max Creek on New Year’s? Webster Theater. A lot of people’s favorite place in the world — Toad’s Place. That place is amazing. I got to go with the Living Room. There was a couple of years at the Living Room from somewhere around 2003 to 2010. There were a few years they played there and the shows were just amazing, at least to me. I think 2007, 2008 was the one with the Heartbeat and the Just a Rose Reprise, and maybe Sympathy for the Devil that night. Vasso was on the drums. It was crazy. It was really crazy.
Korre: When you look at the eras of Max Creek — and I don’t know how much you go back and listen to old recordings from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s — but is there an era of the band that sticks out to you that you go back to? Because you’re like, “Oh, when they played it this way in the ‘90s or the ‘80s,” or “This drummer did it this way.” I’m not sure if that’s how you look at the music or not.
Jimmy: Everybody’s got their drummer and their era. What I’ve found is that — because I’ve had this conversation with people in the campgrounds at night or whatever — it seems to me that whoever was the drummer when you really got into the band, that’s your guy. Obviously, Creek has gone through different phases musically. Everybody’s creativity expands and goes in different directions. You can look at any band and they all change a little bit.
But for me if I had to pick my top five years, I’m going like Allshouse ‘99 to 2004. I mean, those are the shows. Some of those shows — my first Max Creek show in New England, Butternut Basin in May. It was a one-night camp out. Rev Tor Band was there. Brett Connors jammed with them. That era, just wow. I still have a special spot for that. But that’s not to say that there haven’t been certain shows or things that have been just as good, if not better, since. But I think we all go back to that “when I was a kid” thing.
Korre: Well, in the mid to late ’90s, Phish sort of became big. And I’m wondering where did Phish sit in your awareness among Max Creek? And sounds like you were into the Grateful Dead. Where did that sit with you?
Jimmy: Phish is something that I hold near and dear to my heart because John Fishman is from Syracuse. He grew up here and he went to Jamesville-DeWitt High School back in late ’70s, early ’80s before he went to the University of Vermont. Growing up here, it was a very, very big thing. We all knew who he was. We all knew about Phish. When I was 12, 13 years old and there was the older kids that were in high school that were 17, 18. They were going off to college. They had all done Phish tour. There was a lot of Deadheads, a lot of Phish kids in my high school and we all did a lot of shows back in the ’90s.
I saw Phish a lot and I had a great time. I was at Big Cypress for the Millennium when I was 17. My best friend, myself and a girl that lived up the street from him took a Greyhound bus from Syracuse, New York, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. That took about two days. And then we didn’t really know how we were getting from Fort Lauderdale to the Seminole Indian Reservation and we just hitchhiked. And that’s a crazy story in itself.
Actually, in that bus ride from Syracuse to Fort Lauderdale, we met a couple of girls, Tiffany, Paige and Jill. And this year for my 41st birthday, I reunited with Tiffany, actually. She had given me a bracelet when we got to Fort Lauderdale after that long bus ride hanging out together and told me, “Hey, I want to find you in the show. So take this bracelet and that guarantees me that you’re going to find me in the show. You’re going to pick me out of the crowd. You’re going to give it back to me because I don’t want to lose this bracelet.” I never found her. And I carried that bracelet with me everywhere for literally 23 years, every time I went to a show just in case I’d run into her — and I never did.
But with the magic of social media and this and that, we were able to reconnect. I was in the area, I saw Max Creek in Bridgeport on March 24th and drove through Connecticut to get to Rhode Island for my birthday show at the Met on March 25th and happened to stop off a mile or two up the road to seal the deal on a 23-year-old promise. I gave her the bracelet back and had lunch with her and took off and went to Rhode Island and saw Max Creek for my birthday this year. So yeah, Phish definitely has been a huge part of my life thus far at least, and I definitely love that side of my musical palette.
Korre: Well, Jimmy, tell me about your passion for photography and the pictures you’ve taken of Max Creek over the years.
Jimmy: At first I started taking pictures of them just honestly for myself because I always liked the idea of having 8 x 10s of musicians to hang on the wall or something like that. I had a friend when I was younger that was one of the guys that introduced me to the Grateful Dead and Phish. This guy, his name is Matt Whalen, he used to have this 8 x 10 of Jerry Garcia. It’s kind of a famous picture of him. It’s the one where he is dressed like a magician and he’s pulling the guitar out of the hat. He had it autographed and I was always like, “Oh, that’s so cool. I’m going to take some pictures of different musicians so that I can have 8 x 10s and then maybe I’ll go to the show and get them to sign it.”
I really don’t think I have an 8 x 10 signed by anybody from Max Creek still. I have a lot of stuff signed by them, but not an 8 x 10. But yeah, that’s where it started out. I wanted to have a picture of Mark and a picture of Scott and a picture of Rob. I wanted to have them all autographed. I got the pictures. I hung them on the walls. I just never got them signed that I can remember.
Korre: But you’re not just a casual photographer.
Jimmy: No. Well, that’s where it started out. That was why I started doing it. After a little while, I started getting into photography when I was in college. I was considering dabbling in photography and graphic design and web design. I did a little bit and I had to buy equipment for it. So when I bought the equipment and I had this nice camera and a couple of lenses, I was like, “All right. I’m bringing it every time I go see a Creek, as long as it’ll allow me.” So I would just email whoever.
I started the first Max Creek Facebook page a long time ago. That was a couple of years before I started taking a lot of pictures. And one day their old manager, Eric, just emails me on Facebook or sends me a DM and he’s just like, “Yeah, dude. I need the password. There’s like 10,000 people. I need the password.” So I did have access to email them and just be like, “Hey, do you mind if I bring a camera?” And they were always very gracious and cool about it and like, “Yeah, definitely.”
Unfortunately the last few years I’ve gotten very relaxed with my editing. I’ve still got some stuff to go through. But yeah, so I just started taking a lot of pictures and I knew that there was a possibility that maybe they needed them for anything, for any type of social media or graphic design needs or whatever. I always offered any help I could — a couple different things that they’ve featured of mine over the years, which has been very humbling and very special to me. So that’s kind of where it went.
I’m beginning to branch out into other things now, but I do want to do a lot more live music photography. And I have been in contact with some local places around the central New York area and local promoters. And I’m working on getting out there a little bit more.
Korre: Well, I’ve seen some of your pictures online and I think they’re really beautiful. I’m wondering, do you have in your mind this one picture that’s like, that’s the one — that’s the one that just says everything to me about that moment or that night or what you’re trying to get out of the shot?
Jimmy: If we’re talking about that one picture of Max Creek? There’s two. One is of Scott at Bella Terra Fest in 2012. It’s just this daytime shot and he’s just like — you can just feel the raw, just emotion in the picture. It’s an absolutely perfect shot.
And the other one is a full band picture. I was legitimately standing on a little round table and my buddy was holding the belt on the back of my shorts so that I didn’t fall. I had been at the show for a while. It was second set. It was dark out and it was at Lincoln Hill Farms in Canandaigua at this beautiful little venue that they have with a beautiful wooden stage —the colors and the energy and the emotion. When I dream of a Max Creek show, that’s what I see — a crowd having a good time, beautiful lights and those guys focused on their craft. It’s an amazing experience every time.
Korre: Well, it sounds like you’ve had an opportunity to get somewhat close to the band. Do you know any of the band members? Have you had any interactions with them?
Jimmy: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of interactions with all of them. Yeah, Degus, Vasso, Allshouse — Bill and Jay are my guys, I love them. Mark is just an absolutely amazing and genuine human being. Scott is just such a nice guy and just so gracious and humble. And when you’re that talented, that’s a feat in my opinion. And John is just — he’s the guy that started the band. He’s just so cool and always willing to say hello and sit there and chat with you for a minute before the show or after the show.
I was just a little snot-nose kid when I started seeing those guys. They didn’t have to give me the time of day and they were always really cool. Looking back 25 years later, I’ve been seeing this band for more than half my life, and I’ve known those guys since I was legitimately 15 years old.
Korre: One of the many things I love about being a fan of Max Creek is that they are a live act and they have all of these shows recorded and posted online. Me going to Camp Creek, one of those two years I was called out on stage. That was so powerful for me. Being there in the audience, having them take a moment just to recognize that I was there, it was surreal for so many reasons including that. But then to know that that thing was taped. When I came home and I heard it, it was like reliving that moment all over again. Has anything like that happened to you?
Jimmy: Yeah, a couple times. Most notably, I was in college and I had just gotten done with my junior year. I was deciding am I going to finish up and be a double major and major in history and sociology? Am I going to take off and do something else? I had a friend that I met in college, Andrew Curtin. What’s up? Shout out prep school hippie. Love you, bud. He and I decided that we were going to join the military together, actually. We trained together and this and that. And about a week before I was supposed to leave for boot camp, it was like a Friday or Saturday, Creek played a festival up in Central New York, a little bit north of Syracuse. I want to say like Redfield or something. It was this really weird place too. There was a moat around the stage. The band was on stage on an island, and the crowd was on the other side of a river. There was people in canoes, very weird.
But anyway, I saw Scott before the show and I had told him that I have my medical on Monday. As long as I pass my medical, I’m going to boot camp. He was kind of surprised and I was like, “Hey, can you do me a favor? Can you play Life During Wartime tonight?” So the show goes by. I don’t remember if it was one set, two sets, but the show goes by — nothing. I’m like, “Ah, whatever.” A lot of times when I ask Scott to play something, it doesn’t happen. He wasn’t feeling it that night. But encore comes out and he plays Life During Wartime. During it, he actually said a few words to me — a few kind words. That meant a lot to me. I thought about this the other day and I looked it up to see if it was on the archive. It is on the archive.
It was kind of surreal, because you know you were there. You know it’s you that he’s talking about when he says, “You ought to know not to join the armed forces, Jimmy.” That’s definitely me. But it’s weird because you’re hearing it, you know?
So I completely understand what you mean. Same thing, the first time I stood on stage and I was taking pictures of Max Creek at Camp Creek. I think it was 2014. Jay Stanley, my guy, love him — he was just so kind. He came up to me, handed me a backstage pass and said, “We’d really love you to come up and take some pictures today.” That meant a lot. That was really cool. And another amazing photographer Grasp the Moment photography, Brian Walter, he happened to get a picture of me on stage and send it to me, and that was really cool of him.
Korre: Do you get a sense that Max Creek is unique for one reason because they’re accessible and they’re so friendly? That sounds like such a simple way to describe it, but I think it’s true. They seem so down to earth and so humble and so eager to want to know you. But you tell me because them better than I do.
Jimmy: I can’t say that I know any one of them that well. I mean, there’s so many people out there that know them much better and have seen so many more shows. I’m nowhere on that level. But I would say this, the thing that people always say where they’re like, “Hey, those guys. they’re just so down to earth and they’re genuine.” A lot of people say that stuff about people, but it’s not necessarily real. In this case, it is.
They’re just good people. They’re family guys. All of them have families and all of them just legitimately enjoy getting on stage and making some amazing things happen with their instruments and just to see where they can go. You don’t necessarily have to have a roadmap. You don’t have to turn the GPS on. You can just figure it out as you go, and that’s what they do. That’s why you can be a band for 50 years. 50 years.
I mean, that’s something. There aren’t even a lot of corporations that last 50 years. They get absorbed. And we’re talking about a bunch of amazing musicians and amazing people that have through everything just kept going just to see where they’d end up through the music. And that’s something that I almost can’t comprehend. That’s why I love to, when I can, hop on the train for a minute and take a look out the window and see what’s happening.
Korre: Let me ask you a question that I ask a lot of guests on the podcast, which is about your favorite Max Creek songs. I’m curious if you have any favorite originals or maybe covers that they have brought into the rotation or maybe some of those unique one-offs that they don’t play too often?
Jimmy: I’m kind of going to be on the bandwagon for a couple of these. I listen to obviously your podcast with my guy Psilly Willy and Dave Bonan. Heartbeat — I mean, there’s just something about Heartbeat that I just absolutely got to have it every once in a while. And then sometimes it’s even great because it’ll be like two years and I haven’t heard it, and then I hear it. It just hits a certain way. Outside of Home is another one. And, Said and Done — there’s just something about that song. It’s so beautiful. I mean, that one gives you the feels. Thank you for that one, Mark. And I love Darlin’. That brings me back to the old Water Street shows back in 2000, 2001. Definitely. That was one of my first favorite John tunes.
And then covers, I mean, it’s crazy because there are some covers that are staples for a little while and then they don’t play them. There’s some that they will perpetually do over an entire career, like they have I Know You Rider, Scarlet Begonias, things like that. They’ve been doing those for years and they’re just topnotch. I love the way Creek does Scarlet and their I Know You Rider is just, oh my God — it’s amazing.
But there’s a few that they’ve thrown out of nowhere. I remember I’m at Sterling Stage. I don’t remember what year it was. It was late ’90s, early 2000s and Scott starts playing One Hand in my Pocket, the Alanis Morissette song. It was good. Once again, I think it was Sterling, there was a cover of a song called Blurry. I knew it from the radio or something, but I’m like, “What is the name of this song? I’ve heard this before.” It was just an obscure cover that Scott just felt like doing. One night they played Wooly Bully — literally Wooly Bully.
And that’s also part of the lure of the legendary Max Creek is things like that. You’re going to go to the show tonight, everyone’s going to have certain expectations of maybe they’ll play this, maybe they’ll play that, and they throw a curve ball at you that you missed by four feet corkscrew and fall on a home plate. Because you never saw it coming. And that can be great. Israelites, one night out of nowhere — they just start playing Israelites. And I love that song. So you never know what you’re going to get.
Korre: Well I heard you have the lyrics to the song Heartbeat as a tattoo somewhere on your body. Can you tell me more about that?
Jimmy: Yeah, I was about 37. Some people, as I like to explain it, if they have a midlife crisis or whatever, they start changing their mindset midlife. Some people date a younger person, some people go travel extensively, buy a sports car or a boat — something like that. I don’t know why, but I just decided that one day I was going to put a sleeve on. I was going to get a tattoo sleeve on my left arm. The first thing that came to mind was on my forearm to have lyrics and my holy trinity is Max Creek, Phish and the Grateful Dead, so it was going to be something out of that.
The one song that’s meant the most to me in my life when I really sat and thought about it was Heartbeat. So “Listen for the footsteps of the changes” was put on my arm first and foremost, and then I got a Grateful Dead tattoo and also a Phish one. And everything else is just kind of Celtic knots and symbols, with some shamrocks.
Korre: Well, tell me about this other side of Max Creek, which is all the fans that have rallied around this band, this community that has come together — these Creek Freaks. I’ve experienced it only a couple times. So from your perspective, what does it mean to be part of that community? What has it meant to you to be part of the family that is Max Creek?
Jimmy: Man, that’s an onion answer. There’s a lot of layers. Obviously in that scene, you have a lot of people that are fun loving and just want to go out and have a good time. And it doesn’t matter who you’re going to see, if you’re going to see Umphrey’s, you’re going to see Phish, you’re going to see the Allman Brothers, whatever. We’re all like that. But with Max Creek, it goes a little deeper because the shows are more intimate and smaller.
For example, I was telling you about Eastover for the anniversary shows. I think it was maybe their 31st, 32nd anniversary or something. It was one of the first shows there and they did it for probably six or seven years. When you’re hanging out there for two days and there’s only a couple hundred of you, you’re going to hang out. You’re going to really interact and get to know each other, and then you’re back there the next year. And then you got your Camp Creek people that you know. And then all of a sudden it’s been 15 years since you saw Max Creek, and now there’s these young kids who were like 4 years old when you started to go see them, but now they’re there, too, and you’re meeting them.
It’s kind of snowballed over 50 years where you got — I literally remember there was this guy and his daughter and her son. There is three generations and they’re all Max Creek fans. There’s not a lot of bands in history that have been able to have the longevity that they have and be able to keep the same community with the same people and just keep expanding and reaching outwards. And we all know, for the most part, each other. It took me a long time to meet everybody because like I said, I’m not one of the guys that’s able to get there every single weekend because I have to drive a lot further than someone in say, Worcester. So it’s a little tougher. But I mean, all those people that have seen Max Creek 5, 6, 700 times and they’ve always been so cool. Like, “Oh, you’ve seen them three times? That’s awesome. Come back for four.”
We just absolutely try to have the best time we can and enjoy some of the best music that New England has to offer. It’s by far New England’s best kept secret. I can’t think of anything else better that not everybody knows about. So I think that’s the key is that it’s us and it’s something that we all know about that not everybody knows about. And you’re always going to have a friend of your left, a friend of your right, a friend behind you and a friend on stage.
Korre: Well, one of the ways I understand that you express your love of music and your creativity is by singing and playing music yourself. Can you talk to me about that?
Jimmy: Yeah, basically I got broke when I was in college because I was carrying 18 credit hours a semester and I needed to find something to occupy my time so that I wasn’t wasting money or buying video games, doing whatever. So I got a guitar and I started playing. And when you first started playing guitar, it’s difficult. So you got to play a lot, especially when you’re older. I had no formal musical training whatsoever. I just kind of went on YouTube and checked out Marty Schwartz videos and watched videos of my favorite guitar players and try to figure things out. I bought a couple of chord books and just kept going.
And then all of a sudden a lot of my friends were musicians and we were playing and writing together. I’ve always loved poetry and I’ve always written poetry. And somewhere about a couple years into playing, I realized that all my poems are songs and I got to write music to them, or I got to come up with something cool and throw my poem on it. So yeah, it just kind of went that way. And for a while I was in a couple of bands. Gravy Dangerfield was one of them. We had one of the best drummers in Syracuse. Bob Holz was cool enough to hang out with us and teach us a lol. We played around the northeast a little bit, Ohio, Pennsylvania. I then decided to just do my own thing for a little while.
I’ve been out of it since I started working for the post office about seven years ago. I am just starting to get back into it. I have written some new compositions and some new songs over the last couple of months. I am getting to the point where I definitely need to put an act together and need to start playing some music out in front of people again.
Korre: So you’re a guitar player. Scott Murawski is a guitar player. Where do you think Scott sits around this list of guitar heroes in your mind, of all these greats that you may have seen or you idolize?
Jimmy: Scott is definitely my favorite guitar player. The only one that I would put anywhere near him, for me, is Steve Sweney from əkoostik hookah . And one of my dreams in life is to see Scott and Steve play together. Oh my gosh. I hope you hear this, Scott. You and Steve — that’s where it’s at. And it’s because both of them are just beyond talented, beyond creative. They have their own very unique style. Nobody sounds like Scott, nobody. You just don’t. It’s kind of like nobody sounds like Trey. It doesn’t matter what Trey has in his hands. If he’s playing with Goose or he is playing with Tea Leaf Green or whoever, as soon as you hear that, you’re like, “Oh yeah. That’s Trey.” It’s the same thing with Scott.
It’s like, what’s your favorite kind of apple? Do you like the Macintosh? Do you like the Golden Delicious? My favorite apple is Scott. He has his own flavor and the best way that I can describe it, when he’s really feeling it — it energizes people. It almost gives them beer muscles. It’s like he attacks it. He’s not taking anything for granted. He wants to get right in that moment and make the absolute most out of it with every note. And it’s definitely something to behold when you’re actually there and you’re seeing it and you can just see that he’s locked in.
I’ve seen a lot of live shows over the years and I love a very wide pallet of music, but there’s only a handful of guitar players that I’ve ever seen that just can lock in like that and just put it down. Just drop a bomb. Sometimes it’s just, wow. It’s amazing.
Korre: Jimmy, it sounds like music has been such an important part of your life. Why is that? What makes music so special to you?
Jimmy: I didn’t grow up with a smartphone in my pocket or an iPad or a computer or anything like that. I mean, the craziest thing I had was a Nintendo, and that was obviously not connected to everybody in the world so that you could play against each other and talk. So in my childhood, as well as a lot of people my age and older, music was just such a huge part of your everyday life. You were making mix tapes. You were getting bootlegs and trading them. You were later on making CDs and burning stuff in the late ’90s. You get in your car and first thing you’re doing is listening to music. You’re out in the woods and you’re hanging out with your buddies and you’re listening to music.
So from a very young age it became a huge part of my life. And then as I got a little bit older and I started going and seeing live music, I realized that there’s another level to it. It’s not the same thing. You throw the tape on and you press play, it’s the same thing every time. You rewind it, you play it again. But when I go to the show, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. Who knows what’s going to happen? Who knows what’s going to happen in the crowd? Who knows what’s going to happen in the campgrounds or in the parking lot? Who knows what’s going to happen on stage? It’s always something different. It’s never the same. That’s the beauty of live music.
There’s a lot of bands out there that will go note for note and play the same exact set list in the same order every night. But the bands like Max Creek and dozens and dozens of others that have really transformed the musical palette of this country — like I said, festivals were not prevalent back in the ’90s. You had a few, and then in the late ’90s you had a handful. Now there’s a festival every weekend. You can go see live bands. That’s the kind of stuff that bands like Creek and bands like Phish and the Dead and a lot of the bands that I was into back in the day, and still am, created.
I think the evolution and the luckiness of being the age that I am to see it go from cassette tapes to CDs to bands like Phish becoming massively huge without selling a lot of CDs or being on MTV for more than one video, that kept me going. Because I didn’t know where it was going to go, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I go to Gathering of the Vibes and there’s like a thousand people one year, and then a couple years later it’s like George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelics and RatDog. It’s like, wow. Maybe there’s something here — and there is. It’s amazing to have been lucky enough to see that grow. I think that’s why it’s become such a huge part of my life.
Korre: Jimmy Jennings, it was a lot of fun talking with you. Thanks for joining me on Hooked on Creek.
Jimmy: I really appreciate it. I can’t thank you enough. It truly was an honor and I can’t wait for the next time that I’m standing Mark side with you, brother. It’s been a little while since your first Camp Creek, so we got to make that happen soon, alright?
Korre: Alright. Thanks.
Huge thanks to Jimmy Jennings for spending time with me on the podcast. But stay with me now, because I have a great version of Heartbeat lined up for you. This is Max Creek live at the Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 31, 2007.
That concludes episode 50 of Hooked on Creek. Again, big thanks to Jimmy Jennings for joining me on the podcast. Jimmy is a ton of fun to talk to and I really hope you enjoyed our conversation.
If you are curious, earlier in this episode I featured a clip of Max Creek performing Outside of Home live at Sterling Stage in Hannibal, New York, on July 3, 1999. I also included a clip of Max Creek performing Darlin’ live at Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, New York, on January 11, 2002. I included a clip of Max Creek performing Life During Wartime live at the Harvest Festival at Cedar Pines Campground in Redfield, New York, on September 27, 2008. I played a clip of Max Creek performing Said and Done live at the Webster Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, on December 31, 2000. And I also played a clip of Max Creek performing Wooly Bully live at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 23, 2002.
You can find links to stream or download all the music featured in this episode in the show notes or on the Hooked on Creek website at hookedoncreek.com. And while you’re on the website, go ahead and click the contact link and let me know what you think of this podcast. I would love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in!